Any weight that can be shifted from the front of an Audi to the rear helps with weight distribution. Quattro cars are very nose heavy, and prone enough to understeer that it often makes turn-in feel more like wishful thinking and daydreaming. Part of the answer is a shift of the battery to the rear, and in this making a battery cage and then running new cables back
Engine swaps can be done in a number of ways, and can therefore yield different results in terms of reliability and servicing. Inevitably, in any swap, there will be the ultra-confusing and disheartening moment when you are staring at a pile of tangled wires and wondering why you didn't get into repairing sewing-machines or flashlights (that's torches for my UK friends). Here is that point
This is the original 1.8 4cyl that was in the B3 80 Quattro. Not a bad little motor really. When it came to us someone had been clearly having a play trying to get it to idle, but missing the actually cause of the problem. The rubber boots connecting the fuel metering and the intake are notorious for developing small cracks over time, which is
Underneath every car, no matter how much rust and rot there is at the beginning, is a brand new car that just needs unearthing. One of the things that is great about the amount of information available to us is that we can source brand new NOS parts fairly early (if you compare to 20 years ago) as all we need to do is find out where
We're a big fan of solid subframe mounts, especially those made by 034 Motorsports. It's a bit of a pain to remove the stick rubber bushes, but with a press, some heat and patience they will come out. Mounting both the first and rear subframes solidly to the car is just one of those things that means you get much better feel, and is definitely worth
Here you can see the sort of before/after results we're after. Once a job is started, it needs to be finished completely and correctly. In the case of this B5 S4 front end, that meant the following: New front subframe stripped and coated with epoxy paint Replacement uprights as the pinch bolts were seized New wheel bearings HEL stainless brakes lines Rebuilt callipers with all
This is a rear subframe taken off of a B5 S4 that had been sitting for a few years outside. The toll that the moisture had on everything under the car is not difficult to see. Basically everything was suffering from either rotting or surface rust, which was a shame as the car itself was in extremely good condition. It's difficult on jobs like this,
An AGB 2.7tt motor refreshed and ready to go. This motor received a new timing belt, water pump, tensioners, pulleys and refurbished K03 turbos courtesy of Ben at The Turbo Unit. All new hardware virtually everywhere including track density motor mounts and snub mount from 034 Motorsports. Also took the time to paint and just refresh things before install too, just because there's only one way to
This is one of many test-fits of the V8 to the 016 transmission. In order to mate to the gearbox, you have to basically grind off quite a bit of the bottom of the block on the V8. It's not in a critical area, but it does take a bit of guts as you don;t want to get it wrong. Once enough has been removed,
This is a good example of my approach to retrofitting motors where they don't belong. What I've done here is basically use the housing and mount for the power steering pump that came on the PT V8, but instead I've mounted the original 4000 power steering pump inside it. I used the pulley off the PT V8 so it could still use the single serpentine,
